Medieval Inquisition - History

History

All major medieval inquisitions were supposedly decentralized. Authority rested with local officials based on guidelines from the Holy See, but there was no central top-down authority running the inquisitions, as would be the case in post-medieval inquisitions. Thus there were many different types of inquisitions depending on the location and methods; historians have generally classified them into the episcopal inquisition and the papal inquisition.

The first medieval inquisition, the episcopal inquisition, was established in the year 1184 by a papal bull entitled Ad abolendam, "For the purpose of doing away with." The inquisition was in response to the growing Catharist movement in southern France. It is called "episcopal" because it was administered by local bishops, which in Latin is episcopus.

In the 1230s, Pope Gregory IX responded to the failures of the episcopal inquisition with a series of papal bulls which became the papal inquisition. The papal inquisition was staffed by professionals, trained specifically for the job. Individuals were chosen from different orders and secular clergy, but primarily they came from the Dominican Order. The Dominicans were favored for their history of anti-heresy. As mendicants, they were accustomed to travel. Unlike the haphazard episcopal methods, the papal inquisition was thorough and systematic, keeping detailed records. Some documents from the Middle Ages involving first-person speech by medieval peasants come from papal inquisition records.

In northern Europe the Inquisition was somewhat more benign: in the Scandinavian countries it had hardly any impact. In southern Europe, the Inquisition existed in the kingdom of Aragon during the medieval period, but not elsewhere in the Iberian peninsula. It was never formally instituted in England, even in much later times relying instead on more discreet individual figures, like the "Witch-Finder General".